Capital markets lawyers in China may find themselves getting busier with work again.  Just one month after Zhongwang's US$1.26bn IPO, Lumena Resources has debuted in Hong Kong and its IPO is the second largest this year, raising US$149m. Li & Partners, Grandall and Milbank Tweed acted for the issuer on Hong Kong law, PRC law and US law respectively. Appleby advised on Cayman/BVI law. The joint global coordinators were advised by Mallesons Stephen Jacques, Shearman & Sterling and Jun He.

 "In the six months before February this year, there was too much of a credit crunch for people to invest, so none of the IPOs were able to launch, except reasonably small offerings," said Dieter Yih, lead partner of the Mallesons' team. "Since then, there's been more liquidity in the market. Although still low, liquidity has increased slightly and somewhat stabilised so people are beginning to invest.

"There is apparently more interest in mining and resources companies and China's economy is also relatively strong when compared to other markets. Hence, there has been more fund raising opportunities in this part of the world," Yih said.

DLA Piper Hong Kong partner Esther Leung, who was involved in the first two IPOs in Hong Kong this year, is also optimistic about the IPO market.

"There are definitely more IPOs to pitch for as the market expects a recovery in the first half of 2010. Now is the right time to start preparing for the IPO. In the mean time, the market is still expected to be volatile, therefore many issuers are trying to capture the window we have now," said Leung.
 
Managing partner of Grandall's Shanghai office, Charles Guan, also agrees that law firms can expect to have more IPO matters to handle, particularly as A-share IPOs have resumed and the Growth Enterprises Board is soon to be launched.

Lumena Resources is engaged in the mining, processing and manufacturing of natural thenardite products in China and is the second largest thenardite producer in the world in terms of production capacity.

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